


Conversation in a Motel Room

by AVegetarianCannibal



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Conversations, Dialogue, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 18:49:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: A dialogue between two wounded men.





	Conversation in a Motel Room

**Author's Note:**

> Can be seen as a companion piece to ["Scene in a Hospital Room"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15157619).

They lie on separate beds in a motel room that most people probably pay for by the hour, listening to the rattling of the windows as tanker trucks thunder along the interstate mere yards away. It’s cold and wet, but it hurts too much to get up and turn the heater on, if it even works.

Will doesn’t have to glance over at the other bed to know Hannibal is looking at him, and has been for some time.

“If you have something to say, say it.”

“Would you have lived your whole life with her?”

“ _Don’t_.”

“Infection could set in. We may yet die. We should say what we need to say.”

“I’m not going to talk about Molly with you.”

“Then talk about your life. Would you have lived your whole life… that way? Wasn’t it exhausting?”

“As opposed to what? Constantly being on my guard with you?”

“Weren’t you constantly on your guard with— _in_ that situation?”

“Were you exhausted hiding behind your veil, as Bedelia called it?”

“Isolated. Lonely. Not exhausted. I was never worried about letting my veil slip. You must have worried constantly.”

“Yes.”

“And were you lonely?”

“Yes!”

“You felt what I felt. As if your atoms were calling out to mine, and mine were doing just the same.”

“Entangled on a quantum level.”

“More than conjoined.”

“Yes.”

There’s a long silence, save for the rumblings of the trucks and the sympathetic vibrations of the windows. Nobody driving by has any idea that murderers are fighting for survival so near. They have no more insight into the horrible and secret struggles than Molly did.

“Ask what you want to ask,” Will sighs.

“Would you have lived your whole life with her?”

“She would have felt my distance. Eventually. She would have fallen out of love with me and I would have let her.”

“To allow something die slowly is arguably crueler than ending it quickly.”

“I could argue it’s kinder to let something die naturally.”

“If it had been born naturally.”

Will shifts in his bed as much as his injuries will allow. There are considerations he’s not ready to face, considerations he thought pitching himself into the ocean would preclude. So he asks a question of his own.

“Would you have lived your whole life in prison?”

“I would have left.”

“When?”

“When news of your divorce reached me.”

Will shivers in the icy dark until he can’t bear it any longer. His bones hurt from the cold as much as from bodily harm.

With all the concentration and strength he can muster, he inches his way out of bed and walks across the room, past the dilapidated heater to stand over Hannibal. When Hannibal looks up at him, it’s the first time they’ve sustained eye contact since that moment on the bluff.

Hannibal carefully moves toward the middle of the bed and lifts up the thin blanket in silent invitation.

Will accepts.


End file.
